New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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Just a Guy
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

Post by Just a Guy »

Actually Kombat, in Canada, we DO have it both ways. The government spends WAY more than it takes in for all these programs...

So yes, the child is responsible for repaying their "burden" (it's called the national debt).

And yes, the current society is responsible for contributing to raising that child.

From what I've seen of the "burden" we're leaving our children, society is probably getting off fairly light. If kids were smart enough to do the math, THEY'D be rioting in the streets, if not the womb.

The people who first collected old age security, or any other government benefits, never contributed anything to the programs. Your grandparents were probably the ultimate freeloaders having collected without contribution. The kids these days will be saddled with debt beyond your imaginings...

I think you're blaming the wrong generation.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

Post by MarketLost »

kombat wrote:
MarketLost wrote:So are you willing to pay back the money YOUR parent's were subsidized?
So am I financially responsible for the money my parents received for me (i.e., the burden is on the child to "repay"), or am I responsible for contributing to raise children I didn't have (i.e., the burden is on the society, "it takes a village")? You can't have it both ways.
Not at all, but it is obvious from your reply you neither have compassion, nor are you willing to step up to the plate and pay back anything. You just want to complain because you think someone is getting a better deal than you.
Last edited by MarketLost on 17 Aug 2016 00:26, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

Post by MarketLost »

Just a Guy wrote:Actually Kombat, in Canada, we DO have it both ways. The government spends WAY more than it takes in for all these programs...

So yes, the child is responsible for repaying their "burden" (it's called the national debt).

And yes, the current society is responsible for contributing to raising that child.

From what I've seen of the "burden" we're leaving our children, society is probably getting off fairly light. If kids were smart enough to do the math, THEY'D be rioting in the streets, if not the womb.

The people who first collected old age security, or any other government benefits, never contributed anything to the programs. Your grandparents were probably the ultimate freeloaders having collected without contribution. The kids these days will be saddled with debt beyond your imaginings...

I think you're blaming the wrong generation.
Excellent point JAG. One only has to look at the huge wealth transfers when CPP was first introduced, and then when it was reformed by Martin. It's also a well known fact that seniors today are getting much more from the system then they contribute while people that are yet to retire are going to put in far more than they take out.

And for the record, I'm not blaming any generation, we all have their good and bad. The generation that gained the most from CPP and other social programs also are the ones who suffered through the Great Depression. Boomers are getting more than I or my son will get, but they also payed in longer, and also suffered through high inflation, and then interest rates. Gen X and later will have to pay down the debt and take less in social programs later in life, but have a longer education, and shorter time to pay tax; it's all relative.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

Post by AltaRed »

The modern CPP came to be in 1965 at which time payroll deductions started. That means almost everyone who is a boomer, born in 1946 or later, has paid into it all their working lives, albeit it was not until 1998 that full sustainability was introduced that required increased premiums.... as compared to the pay-as-you-go concept that existed before then.

Excerpt from http://mapleleafweb.com/features/canada ... nd-debates
In 1965, the federal government further reformed the public pension regime when it introduced the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). The CPP did not replace Old Age Security, but was implemented as a complementary measure. The CPP differed significantly from the OAS in that the OAS was a direct benefit paid through general government revenues. The CPP, by contrast, was a compulsory social insurance plan, in which employees and employers contribute towards a wage-related retirement pension, and included long-term disability and survivors’ benefits. When it was first introduced, the CPP covered approximately 92 percent of the labour force and was designed to replace 25 percent of the average industrial wage.

See the What is the Canada Pension Plan? section of this article for more information on the differences between CPP and OAS.
As a social insurance plan based on contributions, the Canada Pension Plan was not designed to pay full retirement benefits until 10 years after its introduction. In the meantime, the federal government amended the Old Age Security Act by introducing a tax-free, income-tested supplement for seniors with little or no other income. Referred to as the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS), the program was intended to be a temporary stop-gap measure to support seniors until the CPP was fully operational. During the 1970s, however, concerns were raised that the OAS and CPP were still insufficient as far as preventing poverty for all seniors. As a result, the GIS has become a full-fledged part of the retirement income system; since then its payout value has increased, and it has been indexed to the cost of living.

As discussed above, the constitutional amendments of 1951 and 1964 established pensions as a concurrent federal-provincial jurisdiction, but with provincial paramountcy. As a result, the provinces were entitled to reject the federal government’s CPP and establish their own contribution-based pension scheme. However, only the Province of Quebec has ever done so, creating the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) in 1965/66, which is similar to the CPP in most respects.

Reform of the Canada Pension Plan
Since its introduction in 1965, the CPP has undergone a number of key reforms. Between 1966 and 1986, reforms included introducing a full annual cost of living indexation for benefits; ensuring availability of the same benefits for surviving spouses, common-law partners and dependants (children); eliminating earning tests for early retirement benefits; and dividing pension credits (known as credit splitting) between spouses in the event of a marriage dissolution.

In 1987, another package of CPP reforms was implemented. It included the introduction of a flexible retirement benefit, allowing retirees to begin collecting their benefits as early as age 60; a substantially increased disability pension; a provision that would allow continued issuance of the survivor’s benefit in the event a surviving spouse remarried (previously if the survivor remarried s/he would lose the CPP benefits of his/her deceased spouse); and expansion of the system of credit splitting to cover the separation of married or common-law partners. In 2000, survivor benefits were further expanded to include same-sex common-law relationships.

Beginning in the 1980s, the CPP’s financial sustainability became a key issue due to a convergence of factors, including increases in the life expectancy of the Canadian population, and a large, aging baby boom demographic that would soon be retiring (meaning more people would be drawing on the retirement system and fewer would be contributing). Accordingly, the concern was for the long-term viability of the CPP and its ability to provide meaningful benefits in the future.

While this issue was recognized in the 1980s, little action was taken due to a lack of political will. It wasn’t until 1998 that the federal government and the provinces agreed to make substantial reforms to the program to address the issue of its sustainability. Under the reforms, CPP contributions by employers and employees were significantly increased to provide a stronger revenue base. Additionally, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board was established to invest those funds that were collected but not immediately required (for payout of benefits).

As a result of these reforms, the CPP moved away from a “pay-as-you-go” basis, where contributions were set at a level that would accommodate pension payouts and provide a contingency fund of two years’ worth of benefits for all eligible Canadians. (Under the previous system, any surplus was automatically loaned to the provinces.) Under the new reforms, the CPP moved to a “partially funded” model, accumulating a larger fund of approximately five years’ worth of benefits. In turn, these monies are subsequently invested more broadly by the Canada Pension Plan Board to achieve a better rate of return ― meaning that the funds are not simply sitting “parked” somewhere, but are accruing value.

These reforms significantly improved the financial sustainability of the CPP, such that in 2007, the federal Office of the Chief Actuary released a report on the CPP, which concluded the CPP will be financially sound over a 75-year period. It also found that between 2007 and 2019, CPP contributions will be more than sufficient to cover benefits. After 2019, a portion of the CPP’s investment income will be needed to make up the difference between contributions and expenditures. That said, the economic recession of 2008-09 did impact the CPP. In February 2009, the CPP Investment Board reported a decline in the fund, of $13.8 billion for the nine-month period ending December 31, 2008 (CPPIB, February 2009). By September 2009, however, the board had reported a sharp increase in the fund’s value, which regained the value it lost during the recession (CPPIB, November 2009).
The folks who really made out like bandits are now all dead or in their 80's and 90's. That is history.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

Post by Just a Guy »

And we're probably still paying for it today and, since we keep having deficit spending, we aren't doing anything about it either.

Face it, we're spending more on ourselves than we make...eventually the music is going to stop and someone will have to pay the piper.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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AltaRed wrote:The modern CPP came to be in 1965 at which time payroll deductions started. That means almost everyone who is a boomer, born in 1946 or later, has paid into it all their working lives, albeit it was not until 1998 that full sustainability was introduced that required increased premiums.... as compared to the pay-as-you-go concept that existed before then.
The early CPP recipients got several times more out of it then what they contributed; each year of participation counted as 10% of a "full" CPP entitlement (nevermind the contribution rates which were set way too low). Therefore, initially it was not a true "pay-as-you-go concept", but more of a "pretending to pay-as-you-go concept".

Today's CPP contributors have to pay three and a half decades for a 'full" entitlement, and they pay significantly higher rates.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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Just a Guy wrote:Face it, we're spending more on ourselves than we make...eventually the music is going to stop and someone will have to pay the piper.
You're starting to get an idea of why this topic irks me so. As DINKs, my wife and I are already getting the poorest bang for our tax buck of any other demographic. Yet we're still plunging deeper and deeper into debt, tens of billions per year. If we ever elect someone with enough political backbone to actually do something about the debt, who do you think the lion's share of the load is going to land on? It certainly won't be the photogenic middle-class family with 2 young children at home - it'll be childfree "earners" like my wife and I, asked to chip in incrementally more, little by little, eroding our quality of life a little at a time.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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kombat wrote:As DINKs, my wife and I are already getting the poorest bang for our tax buck of any other demographic.
I beg to disagree. I've got 4 kids, 2 in university, and receive no benefits due to my income level. So I'm in the same boat as you but I also pay 100% of the cost of my children. ..I also pay more taxes than 99% of Canadians according to the government.

Basically, there is always someone worse off or better off than you. Accept it or change it. If you can't do either than let off some steam (I did myself in this thread) but ..enough already.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

Post by AltaRed »

Descartes wrote:I beg to disagree. I've got 4 kids, 2 in university, and receive no benefits due to my income level. So I'm in the same boat as you but I also pay 100% of the cost of my children. ..I also pay more taxes than 99% of Canadians according to the government.
Same thing for me really, but we did get indirect benefits that I articulated earlier: Education component of property taxes, gov't grants to colleges and universities, tuition tax credits. That is simply the price of living in a responsible society AND helping to ensure an adequate labour force.

The question here seems to be more of the degree of benefits and what appears to be excesses. The numbers are really set to not antagonize a key voting demographic.

Our national deficits are really about idealogy and the inability of politicans to keep their hands out of taxpayer pockets in a multitude of ways. I don't know how our federal and provincial governments can indebt our children so much when they are starving defense, infrastructure and a handful of other critical areas. It seems to be a highly contagious disease given how many nations run deficits.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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Hey, at least with income tax there are legal ways to lower and defer them.

I pay tens of thousands of dollars each year on property taxes. There's not many ways to lower them, they steadily increase every year and I more than pay for the education component of my kids...

Of course, technically my tenants pay it, but I could lower my rents if I didn't have to pay as much...or I could afford to spend more on my kids.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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Descartes wrote:Basically, there is always someone worse off or better off than you.
Right. My frustration stems from my perception that the harder I try to move up this ranking, the government takes a portion of my gains and redistributes it to the very people I'm trying to do better than, in an effort they would characterize as "fairness." And one can accept paying taxes while still complaining about the relative amount of said taxes. I'm not opposed to all taxes whatsoever - I simply feel that the current trend is unfair to those of us who chose not to have children, in an effort to improve our own financial security and self-sufficiency. It feels like the government sees that our plan is working, and concordantly we are well-off, so they feel entitled to take some of the fruits of that sacrifice and redistribute them to others who made different choices that - entirely predictably - resulted in less financial security for themselves.
Descartes wrote:Accept it or change it.
Well I obviously don't accept it, and I'm attempting to change it by engaging in a dialog and attempting to draw attention to the matter.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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The government was quite clear during the election...
"if elected, we'll take money from the [vaguely defined] "rich", who can afford to pay a little more, and give it to [points to whomever they are talking to at the time, despite their current net worth] you"
Not to just pick on Justin, but that's basically been the way to get elected in Canada for as long as I've been alive. The party who offers us the most of other people's money, when in reality we're the other people, wins.

Provincial politics is even worse, look at Quebec (let's separate and leave the debts we created with Canada), Ontario (if you move to this side of town, your benefits increase by several hundred dollars a month), Saskatchewan (where they literally got elected by offering grants to refinish your basement once), now Alberta (where their environmental carbon tax is a wealth transfer tax and has less than 50% being officially used to reduce carbon)...

Face it, we are doing this to ourselves. There is no "government conspiracy", they are doing exactly what we elected them to do.

I imagine you voted, and I also bet you've never called your representatives to complain to them. I really doubt you've ever thrown your hat in the ring, or even participated in a campaign. I find it ironic though that you'll complain on a public board. It's almost like those people who sit at home all day complaining that they are broke...

There are effective ways to do things, and there are ways to do things which are completely ineffective, yet make you feel like you're "doing something", but in reality you probably would be better off sleeping in.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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AltaRed wrote:The numbers are really set to not antagonize a key voting demographic.
More that they were set to pander to a key voting demographic at the expense of less important demographics.

We elected a demagogue.
The difference between Trump and Trudeau isn't that great.
Instead of targeting Arabs or Mexicans as the "enemy", the enemy is one most Canadians can get behind without any pains of conscience: those that appear to have more than us.

But look at you: you managed to bait me into a rant again. You're as bad as "Mr. Retired@40" :). I'll try to shut up more firmly now.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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kombat wrote:Well I obviously don't accept it, and I'm attempting to change it by engaging in a dialog and attempting to draw attention to the matter.
And there are many others who quietly feel the same way as you but, as you can see here, it is pointless debating the issue either here or in general society anymore when so many feel so entitled to the fruits of their votes.

To trot out and amend an old truism: "“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his baby bonus/home reno credit/public transit credit salary depends on his not understanding it.”

A decade ago when Dingwall made his famous utterance many laughed because it was seen as an expression of the grasping greed that epitomized the worst of the elite political class in this country (or even just of his own party if you are partisan).
I for one think that a decade after his gaffe, his attitude is now, sadly, widely embraced in the attitudes of mainstream Canadian society. There are many snouts in many troughs and with each election cycle more are added. It is how votes are won and the ill-informed influenced.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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Just a Guy wrote:I imagine you voted, and I also bet you've never called your representatives to complain to them.
For what it's worth, I did in fact write a letter to my MP (Pierre Poilievre, at the time), expressing frustration at all the programs, benefits, and grants available to students, seniors, and people with kids, when there is nothing at all targeted at hardworking, dual-income, child-free families like my wife and I. I got back a form letter describing all the great initiatives the Harper Conservatives had enacted, without really addressing my point.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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kombat wrote:
For what it's worth, I did in fact write a letter to my MP (Pierre Poilievre, at the time), expressing frustration at all the programs, benefits, and grants available to students, seniors, and people with kids, when there is nothing at all targeted at hardworking, dual-income, child-free families like my wife and I. I got back a form letter describing all the great initiatives the Harper Conservatives had enacted, without really addressing my point.
Just out of curiosity. What benefits would you like?
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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Spidey wrote:Just out of curiosity. What benefits would you like?
I would like to see some form of equity for seniors who are single and can't take advantage of the unfair income splitting that married couples enjoy. There is no one for them to split income with, so some form of credit should be created.

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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

Post by Flaccidsteele »

kombat wrote:...when there is nothing at all targeted at hardworking, dual-income, child-free families like my wife and I...
What would you like targeted for this cohort?
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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Spidey wrote:Just out of curiosity. What benefits would you like?
I would say, in my ideal world, it would be more about reducing/eliminating overly-generous and unfair benefits targeted at other demographics, than adding new ones specifically targeting my and my wife's situations. For example, income-splitting. Trudeau did cancel it for families with children (which is a good start), but it remains in place for seniors. This is an expensive, unnecessary giveaway to the demographic that least needs it, and it comes out of the pockets of the demographic that can least afford it.

I would also do things like eliminate private school tuition deduction, vastly decrease the thresholds for OAS clawbacks and means testing for the CCB.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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Wow...hold on you rebel. Changes like that may cause a rounding error.

If you're going to call for change, at least call for something that will make a difference to the budget. We need to cut billions, not pennies. The cuts have to be more than enough to not only balance the budget, but also pay down the deficit significantly while these interest rates are low.

Your suggestion is like telling a person to not buy one of their cheap cups of coffee per day...while they go out any buy a new car on credit.

Funny how, on a board which usually talks about aggressively paying down their mortgages, and cutting back to do so, no one is up in arms about government spending.

If someone posted that they spent their lives running up their credit cards, buying toys like boats, quads, etc. then refinancing their mortgage every few years to consolidate their loans since their credit is fine, this board would be all over them, happily ripping them a new one.

Yet, every election year, not a peep about the government basically doing the same thing. I guess, as long as they are wasting the money on you, it's really not that bad right?

If we were serious about change, it's going to hurt and hurt everyone. I suppose, having been broke, I understand what it's like. I also know I never want to get back to that stage again. Unfortunately, I personally can control the one currently spending cash in my name, but at least I can limit the amount I give them. Sad that I need to hope their credit rating gets shot before I run out of the ability to pay back my portion.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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kombat wrote:
Spidey wrote:Just out of curiosity. What benefits would you like?
I would say, in my ideal world, it would be more about reducing/eliminating overly-generous and unfair benefits targeted at other demographics, than adding new ones specifically targeting my and my wife's situations. For example, income-splitting. Trudeau did cancel it for families with children (which is a good start), but it remains in place for seniors. This is an expensive, unnecessary giveaway to the demographic that least needs it, and it comes out of the pockets of the demographic that can least afford it.

I would also do things like eliminate private school tuition deduction, vastly decrease the thresholds for OAS clawbacks and means testing for the CCB.
Notice that the so called family income splitting benefited families with children as does the Canada Child Benefit.There may be a small difference in the actual amount a particular family benefits from and certainly the CCB is better for single parent families and those with many children but the main beneficiary is the civil service since the CCB requires more administration,i.e. it is effectively a make work project for them.
Seniors have PENSION splitting not income splitting,the main beneficiaries being those with large indexed pensions such as MPs and civil servants.RRIF income can also be split after a later age but this is not likely to cost much since we have had the ability to make spousal contributions for many years.Besides which one has to have a big enough pension income to benefit from the resulting reduction in tax brackets which virtually eliminates most pensioners.OAS could easily be replaced by a refundable tax credit but again that would reduce administration costs etc.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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kombat wrote:I would also do things like eliminate private school tuition deduction
Come again, which deduction?
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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Usually our decision on how things should be in an "ideal world" tends to be biased on what benefits us most. While the system should always be open to "tweaking", I find it counterproductive to worry too much about what others are getting. I've heard childless people on call-in radio shows complaining about paying for benefits of those with children since I was about 8 years-old and that was almost 50 years ago. Probably not going to change, so why allow it to disrupt your peace of mind? I guess what strikes me is that I don't tend to see many double income, no kids folks who seem terribly hard done by. Life for most of us is pretty good regardless of which group we fall in.

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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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adrian2 wrote:
kombat wrote:I would also do things like eliminate private school tuition deduction
Come again, which deduction?
I was under the impression that private school tuition was tax-deductible. Evidently, either I was misinformed, or the loophole has since been closed. Nevertheless, there still appears to be multiple ways in which the parents of a child in private school can leverage their situation to reduce their taxes.
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Re: New 2016 Canada Child Benefit cheques

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kombat wrote: I was under the impression that private school tuition was tax-deductible. Evidently, either I was misinformed, or the loophole has since been closed. Nevertheless, there still appears to be multiple ways in which the parents of a child in private school can leverage their situation to reduce their taxes.
Apparently it costs over $12,000 annually to send a student to public education. ISTM that you are unhappy with the benefits that couples with children receive and you are still unhappy when they pay for one of those biggest benefits (education) out of their own pocket because of some small break they might get for doing so.

The cost of raising a child to 18 is estimated at $243,660 by this site:

http://www.canadianliving.com/life-and- ... -in-canada

Lets say after government breaks* given to families that comes to $200,000. (Just a rough guesstimate.) That means that you and your spouse/partner should be $400,000 better off than a couple with 2 children over 18 years. And if you consider university costs that many parents either pay or subsidize, the real difference is often somewhere around $600,000. Do you really feel you need more benefits and programs?


*Note: I didn't include public school education as part of those "government breaks" as virtually every non-poverty stricken country has found it to be in their benefit to pay for public education of children.
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